nexmoe/vidbee

★ 9,007TypeScriptAudience · generalComplexity · 2/5LicenseSetup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Video downloading
      Queue management
      RSS auto-download
    Tech stack
      TypeScript
      Electron
      yt-dlp
      FFmpeg
    Use cases
      Desktop downloads
      Server deployment
      Channel monitoring
    Audience
      Casual users
      Self-hosters

mindmap root((repo)) What it does Video downloading Queue management RSS auto-download Tech stack TypeScript Electron yt-dlp FFmpeg Use cases Desktop downloads Server deployment Channel monitoring Audience Casual users Self-hosters

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Download videos from YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram as MP4 or MKV files by pasting a URL into the queue-based desktop interface.

USE CASE 2

Subscribe to a YouTube channel or TikTok account via RSS and automatically download new uploads in the background.

USE CASE 3

Run VidBee as a Docker container on a home server and access the download queue from any browser on your network.

Tech stack

TypeScriptElectronyt-dlpFFmpegDocker

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Use, modify, and distribute freely for any purpose including commercial use, with no restrictions beyond keeping the copyright notice.

In plain English

VidBee is a desktop application for downloading videos and audio from websites. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux as a regular desktop app, and it can also run as a self-hosted web service with a browser interface. Under the hood it uses yt-dlp, an open-source tool that handles the actual downloading and supports over a thousand video platforms including YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. The desktop app presents a queue-based interface where you paste a URL, choose an output format (MP4, MKV, WebM, or the site's original format), and the download appears in a list with real-time progress. You can pause, resume, or retry individual items in the queue. The app is built with Electron, a framework that packages web technologies into a native-feeling desktop window. An RSS auto-download feature lets you subscribe to a creator's feed once, and the app will automatically detect and download new uploads in the background. This works across platforms that expose RSS feeds, including YouTube channels and TikTok accounts. For users who want to run VidBee on a server rather than a personal computer, there is a Docker-ready version. You run a container using the provided configuration, point the download folder to a storage volume, and access the interface through a web browser. A separate API server handles downloads, and the web interface connects to it. The repository is a monorepo, meaning several related applications live together: the desktop app, the web client, the API server, a browser extension, and the documentation site. The core downloading logic is extracted into a shared package used by both the desktop and web versions. The project is open source under the MIT license and credits yt-dlp and FFmpeg (a multimedia processing tool) as the underlying engines that power the downloading and format conversion.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

Help me set up VidBee with Docker Compose so I can access it from my browser and point downloads to a NAS volume.

Prompt 2

How do I add an RSS feed for a YouTube channel in VidBee so it automatically downloads new videos when they are published?

Prompt 3

I want to download a playlist from a site that yt-dlp supports. Walk me through using VidBee to add the playlist URL and choose MP4 output.

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